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W<\/span>hen Robert Schumann<\/a> composed his Second Symphony in <\/span>1845, he was suffering from deep depression. His Third, the Rhenish<\/i>, was completed in 1851 during a brief, stable period \u2013 a move from Dresden to D\u00fcsseldorf in 1850 as the city\u2019s municipal music director boded well both for him and his even more celebrated pianist wife, Clara<\/a>.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p><\/div> <\/section> The \u2018dark time\u2019 of the Second is nowhere to be heard in the Third. \u2018Ein St\u00fcck Leben am Rhein\u2019 (\u2018a bit of life on the River Rhine\u2019) is Schumann\u2019s modest description of his five-movement symphony, and that \u2018life\u2019 includes the solemn Feierlich<\/i> (\u2018ceremonial\u2019) fourth movement in which Schumann visualises the recent elevation to cardinal of Archbishop von Geissel at Cologne Cathedral. But, like Beethoven\u2019s Pastoral<\/i><\/strong>\u2004<\/a>before it, the Rhenish<\/i>\u2004is not merely a musical snapshot of rural or river life but a German Romantic symphony on a large scale.<\/span><\/p>\n Wolfgang Sawallisch (conductor)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Staatskapelle Dresden (1973)<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n EMI 567 7682<\/strong><\/i><\/span><\/p>\n As the man says: \u2018It don\u2019t mean a thing, if it ain\u2019t got that swing\u2019. Nobody swings into the midstream Rhine with more abandon than conductor Wolfgang Sawallisch. Lebhaft <\/i>(\u2018lively\u2019) is Schumann\u2019s marking for the opening movement, but the orchestra also brings exuberance and heft, sweeping the listener along on a surging current of sound, and the glorious horn fanfare greets us like a shaft of sunlight. The Scherzo<\/i><\/a><\/strong> is appropriately bucolic (wonderful horns again). <\/span>What follows is not a slow movement as such, but a Schumann innovation: a charming intermezzo, played here with deftness and refinement. <\/span><\/p>\n The glorious Dresden Staatskapelle sound really comes into its own in the Cologne Cathedral movement, where the three trombones make their first appearance, while the finale is brilliantly light on its toes, bringing Schumann\u2019s Rhine journey to a rousing finish. There remains the perceived problem of the composer\u2019s inability to orchestrate. Gustav Mahler<\/a><\/strong>, Michael Gielen and George Szell were among the composers and conductors who felt he needed a helping hand and so made their own revisions to the score, but Sawallisch simply trusts Schumann, and quite right he is too. The only miscalculation in the recording is its failure to allow the timpanist\u2019s hard sticks to be heard fully. But it\u2019s a small price to pay for what is a very special Rhenish<\/i>, one which is difficult to imagine being surpassed.<\/span><\/p>\nThe best recordings of Schumann\u2019s Third Symphony \u2018Rhenish\u2019<\/h2>\n